Just to keep the conversation going during the ongoing annual December (pre-Christmas) re-meat news lull, we thought we'd take the opportunity to direct our readers to a couple of back-burner news items, related to a topic which has generated considerable previous discussion here on Weber County Forum... Yesiree... let's have Streetcars as the main topic of the day.
In that connection we'll first refer to this December 5 Salt Lake Tribune story, which reports that Salt Lake City officials are taking the lead in planning a streetcar system which would serve key waypoints in Salt Lake's central downtown area:
Salt Lake City wants to make the dusty black-and-white picture books of downtown bound to life.What's significant here, we believe, is that it's Salt Lake Officials, Mayor Ralph Becker in particular, who are driving the selection of Salt Lake's preferred transportation corridors. Unlike the situation in Ogden City, where UTA bureaucrats are attempting to interpose their own priorities, without deference to the desires of the citizens and officials "on the ground," UTA is evidently taking a hands-off attitude with Salt Lake planning, and allowing "the locals" to plan their own Transit Oriented Development modes.
Mayor Ralph Becker imagines a 21st-century version of the city's old streetcars snaking through the capital's urban catacomb.
And, now, consultants hired by the city have four potential routes that -- depending on federal funding -- one day may make it possible to traverse the business district on wheels without a car.
"The administration sees it as a key element in catalyzing development in downtown," says Becker spokeswoman Lisa Harrison Smith. "It's definitely a high-level priority."
Subject to tweaks, the proposed alignments would zip streetcars from the Salt Lake Central transit station south to 900 South, east to 500 East and right through downtown's heart -- passing by the Salt Palace Convention Center and planned City Creek Center. The lines would be designed to swell ridership on the Utah Transit Authority bus and rail network and serve as a "circulator," ferrying people between downtown TRAX stations and the FrontRunner hub.
It might be helpful if Ogden's own Mayor would get aboard the 25th/26th Street transit corridor bandwagon, don't you think? It's been reported that he's indeed leaning that way; and we hereby invite Boss Godfrey to jump aboard with both feet. What a delightful novelty it would be to witness Ogden's Mayor working WITH the lumpencitizens for once.
And for those of us who might believe that Ogden is alone in being singled out by UTA as a city where local priorities seem to be take a back seat to UTA's own bone-headed plans, we provide a link to this 11/27/09 Standard-Examiner story, which reports that the city of Clearfield also finds itself in a similar boat.
Next, we'll shine the spotlight on this 11/25/09 Utah Heritage Foundation blog article, wherein Utah's premier historic preservation/neighborhood development organization goes unequivocally record in support of Ogden's 25th/26th Street east-west transportation corridor.
We'll invite our readers to address the above-suggested topics, or treat this article as an open-topics thread. But before we turn over the floor, we'll offer another (patented) neck snapping WCF segue:
We received a report this morning that Ogden's own Jon Greiner was a guest this morning on Fox News (the national cable version,) being interviewed on the topic of public employee double dipping. Our reader tipster reports that our Senator/Chief of Police appeared to be a mite uneasy about the line of questioning. If anyone else would like to chime with more information on this, we're sure our Sunday afternoon Weber County Forum readership would be most grateful. We've been unable to verify this tip ourselves; perhaps our ever-alert readership can provide some help
That's it for now folks.
Who will be the first to comment?
